U.S. patent number 9,844,083 [Application Number 14/650,842] was granted by the patent office on 2017-12-12 for method and network element for controlling ue's state transition in proximity wireless communication.
This patent grant is currently assigned to Nokia Technologies Oy. The grantee listed for this patent is Nokia Technologies Oy. Invention is credited to Kari Veikko Horneman, Yixue Lei, Haitao Li, Vinh Van Phan, Ling Yu.
United States Patent |
9,844,083 |
Lei , et al. |
December 12, 2017 |
Method and network element for controlling UE's state transition in
proximity wireless communication
Abstract
Disclosed are methods and apparatus for controlling state
transition of a user equipment UE in proximity wireless
communication. A method can comprise: learning about an associated
agent's context of a connected UE and said UE's capability;
deciding to put the connected UE into virtual associated state;
sending to said UE a message with indication of putting said UE
into said virtual associated state as well as the UE's context; and
maintaining said associated agent's context of the UE.
Inventors: |
Lei; Yixue (Beijing,
CN), Li; Haitao (Beijing, CN), Phan; Vinh
Van (Oulu, FI), Yu; Ling (Espoo, FI),
Horneman; Kari Veikko (Oulu, FI) |
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
Nokia Technologies Oy |
Espoo |
N/A |
FI |
|
|
Assignee: |
Nokia Technologies Oy (Espoo,
FI)
|
Family
ID: |
51019632 |
Appl.
No.: |
14/650,842 |
Filed: |
December 24, 2012 |
PCT
Filed: |
December 24, 2012 |
PCT No.: |
PCT/CN2012/087307 |
371(c)(1),(2),(4) Date: |
June 09, 2015 |
PCT
Pub. No.: |
WO2014/100941 |
PCT
Pub. Date: |
July 03, 2014 |
Prior Publication Data
|
|
|
|
Document
Identifier |
Publication Date |
|
US 20150334754 A1 |
Nov 19, 2015 |
|
Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04W
76/27 (20180201); H04W 8/005 (20130101); H04W
76/14 (20180201) |
Current International
Class: |
H04W
4/00 (20090101); H04W 8/00 (20090101); H04W
76/02 (20090101); H04W 76/04 (20090101) |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Foreign Patent Documents
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102204392 |
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Sep 2011 |
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CN |
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102550117 |
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Jul 2012 |
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CN |
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2345299 |
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Jul 2011 |
|
EP |
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2010/025774 |
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Mar 2010 |
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WO |
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2012/034580 |
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Mar 2012 |
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WO |
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2012/087190 |
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Jun 2012 |
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WO |
|
Other References
Chemmagate, "An Experimental Study of Web Transport Protocols in
Cellular Networks", Thesis, Dec. 14, 2011, 75 pages. cited by
applicant .
Extended European Search Report received for corresponding European
Patent Application No. 12890706.0, dated Jul. 5, 2016, 8 pages.
cited by applicant .
International Search Report and Written Opinion received for
corresponding Patent Cooperation Treaty Application No.
PCT/CN2012/087307, dated Oct. 10, 2013, 11 pages. cited by
applicant.
|
Primary Examiner: Heiber; Shantell L
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and
Popeo, P.C.
Claims
The invention claimed is:
1. An apparatus, comprising: at least one processor; and at least
one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory
and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one
processor, cause the apparatus to at least: determine that a user
equipment is associated with an agent, the user equipment being
associated with the agent by at least being connected to the agent;
in response to the determination that the user equipment is
associated with the agent, transition the user equipment into a
virtual associated state, the virtual associated state comprising a
state in which the user equipment is connected to the agent while
in an idle state, the transition causing a message to be sent to
the user equipment, the message including an indication for the
user equipment to transition into the virtual associated state; and
maintain a context of the user equipment, the context of the user
equipment including the agent associated with the user
equipment.
2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the user equipment
is connected to the agent directly via a physical association, and
wherein the user equipment establishes the physical association by
at least discovering the agent by physical signal and establishing
the physical connection with the agent.
3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the apparatus is
further caused to at least: receive from the user equipment and/or
the agent, a report that the user equipment is associated with the
agent, the determining that the user equipment is associated with
the agent being based at least on the report.
4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the user equipment
responds to the message by at least a transition to the virtual
association state, the transition to the virtual association state
comprising a transition to the idle state while an association with
the agent is maintained.
5. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the apparatus is
further caused to at least: determine that the user equipment is
associated with a new agent; and update the context of the user
equipment, the update comprising a change of the agent associated
with user equipment to the new agent.
6. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the apparatus is
further caused to at least: initiate a release of the virtual
associated state, the release of the virtual associated state being
initiated in response to a report from the agent indicating that
the user equipment is no longer associated with the agent, and the
release of the virtual associated state being initiated further in
response to an absence of a report from another agents indicating a
different association between the other agent and the user
equipment.
7. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the apparatus is
further caused to at least: initiate a release of the virtual
associated state in response to an idle mode procedure initiated by
the user equipment, the initiation of the idle mode procedure
indicating that the user equipment is no longer associated with the
agent.
8. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the agent comprises
a local access point serving as a proximity service discovery
agent, a local user plane connectivity agent, and/or an offloading
agent.
9. A method, comprising: reporting, to a base station to which the
user equipment is connected, that the user equipment is associated
with an agent, the user equipment being associated with the agent
by at least being connected to the agent; receiving, from the base
station, a message with indication for the user equipment to
transition into a virtual associated state, the virtual associated
state comprising a state in which the user equipment is connected
to the agent while in an idle state; and transitioning, in response
to the message, into the virtual associated state, the transition
into the virtual associated state comprising a transition into the
idle state while an association with the agent is maintained.
10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the user equipment is
connected to the agent directly via a physical association, and
wherein the user equipment establishes the physical association by
at least discovering the agent by physical signal and establishing
the physical connection with the agent.
11. The method according to claim 9, wherein the user equipment is
kept in the connected state when the user equipment is not
associated with any agent and/or when the user equipment is not
equipped with a capability for the virtual associated state.
12. The method according to claim 9, wherein the message further
comprises a context of the user equipment, the context of the user
equipment including the agent associated with the user
equipment.
13. The method according to claim 12, wherein the context of the
user equipment an identifier of the agent, a radio network
temporary identifier of the user equipment, a frequency of reports
to a serving network, one or more events that trigger reports to
the serving network, and/or a requirement to monitor
network-initiated control signaling.
14. The method according to claim 9, wherein proximity wireless
communication comprises a device-to-device discovery and
communication procedure.
15. An apparatus for controlling state transition of a user
equipment in proximity wireless communication, comprising: at least
one processor; and at least one memory including computer program
code, the at least one memory and the computer program code
configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus
to at least: report, to a base station to which the user equipment
is connected, that the user equipment is associated with an agent,
the user equipment being associated with the agent by at least
being connected to the agent; receive, from the base station, a
message with indication for the user equipment to transition into a
virtual associated state, the virtual associated state comprising a
state in which the user equipment is connected to the agent while
in an idle state; and transition, in response to the message, into
the virtual associated state, the transition into the virtual
associated state comprising a transition into the idle state while
an association with the agent is maintained.
16. The apparatus according to claim 15, wherein the message is at
least one of a radio resource control connection release message
and a radio resource control connection reconfiguration
message.
17. The apparatus according to claim 15, wherein the apparatus is
further caused to at least: establish a different association with
another agent and send, to the base station, a report indicating
the different association with the other agent, the message
configured to cause the base station to update a context of the
user equipment, the context of the user equipment being maintained
at the base station, the context of the user equipment including
the agent associated with the user equipment, and the context of
the user equipment being updated to include the other agent
associated with the user equipment.
18. The apparatus according to claim 15, wherein the context of the
user equipment includes an identifier of the agent, a radio network
temporary identifier of the user equipment, a frequency of reports
to a serving network, one or more events that trigger reports to
the serving network, and/or a requirement to monitor
network-initiated control signaling.
Description
RELATED APPLICATION
This application was originally filed as PCT Application No.
PCT/CN2012/087307 filed Dec. 24, 2012.
TECHNICAL FIELD
The exemplary and non-limiting embodiments of this invention relate
generally to wireless communication technology, and more
particularly, relate to controlling state transition of a user
equipment UE in proximity wireless communication, in particular RRC
(Radio Resource control) state transition for device-to-device
(herein after referred to as "D2D") discovery and
communication.
BACKGROUND
In recent, amount of traffic to be treated by cellular network
increases as mobile multimedia services become popular. Especially,
evolved nodeB (eNB) handles traffic more than in past years because
of fast-growing needs of high data rate services. In pre-existing
cellular networks, eNB should relay UEs' (User Equipment) data to
core network even though users located in same cell coverage
communicate with each other, which increases communication delay
and burdens eNBs because of densely crowded users.
To solve this problem, device-to-device (D2D) communication has
been introduced, which enables UEs to either reuse the frequency
band used in pre-existing cellular network or use out-of-band
frequency for direct communication with each other. D2D
communication can reduce end-to-end delay and traffic load on
eNBs.
FIG. 1 shows the wireless communication system 100 in which the D2D
technology implements. As shown, the wireless communication system
100 includes an eNB 110 serving three UEs 114A-C and a core network
120 comprising conventional network nodes, such as MME (Mobility
Management Entity) 112, S-GW (Serving Gateway) 116, P-GW (PDN
Gateway) 118, HSS, etc.
It should be noted that, although FIG. 1 depicts only one eNB and
three UES, it is only for the purpose of illustration and the
wireless communication system 100 can accommodate any number of
eNB(s) and UE(s).
In an exemplary scenario, UEs 114B and 114C which are being in
communication via an infrastructure communication path 122A-C are
being moved to be in close proximity to each other. Then, for
example for the sake of power saving, cost saving, and/or offload
of the core network etc., it may be necessary to switch the
infrastructure communication path between them to a D2D
communication path, for transporting traffic directly between the
two UEs. In another exemplary scenario, two UEs 114A and 114B which
are being in communication via a D2D communication path 124 are
moved away from each other. Then, transport conditions of the D2D
link 124 may become bad, so that the D2D communication path is not
available between the two UEs. As such, to avoid communications
between the two UEs being interrupted, the two UEs may have to
switch the communications from the D2D communication path to other
available communication path, such as an infrastructure
communication path.
For network controlled or assisted D2D discovery and communication,
at least one of the UEs involved in D2D may need to be kept in
RRC_CONNECTED state for network control and mobility management.
For autonomous D2D, the devices thereof may be in either RRC_IDLE
or RRC_CONNECTED state.
However, since D2D may be deployed in a band separated from that of
the controlling cell or serving network and it is important to keep
control overhead as low as possible and utilize offloading
possibility as much as possible for the serving network, there is a
need to improve the current D2D discovery and communication
procedure.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONS
To overcome limitations in the prior art described above, and to
overcome other limitations that will be apparent upon reading and
understanding the present specification, the disclosure provides a
method for controlling state transition of a user equipment UE in
proximity wireless communication and related network element and
computer program products.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is
provided a method for controlling state transition of a user
equipment UE in proximity wireless communication comprising:
learning about an associated agent's context of a connected UE and
said UE's capability; deciding to put the connected UE into virtual
associated state; sending to said UE a message with indication of
putting said UE into said virtual associated state as well as the
UE's context; and maintaining said associated agent's context of
the UE.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is
provided an apparatus for controlling state transition of a user
equipment UE in proximity wireless communication comprising: at
least one processor; and at least one memory including computer
program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code
configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus
to perform at least the following: learning about an associated
agent's context of a connected UE and said UE's capability;
deciding to put the connected UE into virtual associated state;
sending to said UE a message with indication of putting said UE
into said virtual associated state as well as the UE's context; and
maintaining said associated agent's context of the UE.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is
provided an apparatus for controlling state transition of a user
equipment UE in proximity wireless communication comprising:
learning means for learning about an associated agent's context of
a connected UE and said UE's capability; deciding means for
deciding to put the connected UE into virtual associated state;
sending means for sending to said UE a message with indication of
putting said UE into said virtual associated state as well as the
UE's context; and maintaining means for maintaining said associated
agent's context of the UE.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is
provided a method for controlling state transition of a user
equipment UE in proximity wireless communication comprising:
reporting an associated agent's context to a base station to which
said UE is connected; receiving from said base station a message
with indication of putting said UE into virtual associated state as
well as the UE's context; and switching to said virtual associated
state while keeping associated with the said agent.
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is
provided an apparatus for controlling state transition of a user
equipment UE in proximity wireless communication comprising: at
least one processor; and at least one memory including computer
program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code
configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus
to perform at least the following: reporting an associated agent's
context to a base station to which said UE is connected; receiving
from said base station a message with indication of putting said UE
into virtual associated state as well as the UE's context; and
switching to said virtual associated state while keeping associated
with the said agent.
According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is
provided an apparatus for controlling state transition of a user
equipment UE in proximity wireless communication comprising:
reporting means for reporting an associated agent's context to a
base station to which said UE is connected; receiving means for
receiving from said base station a message with indication of
putting said UE into virtual associated state as well as the UE's
context; and switching means for switching to said virtual
associated state while keeping associated with the said agent.
The exemplary embodiments of the present invention further provide
computer-readable storage mediums and computer program product,
carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions which,
when executed by one or more processors, cause an apparatus to at
least perform the steps of methods according to the first and
second aspect of the exemplary embodiments of the present
invention.
Those of skill in the art will appreciate that the above is merely
an introduction to the subject matter described in more detail
below. Other objectives, features and advantages of the present
invention will appear from the following detailed disclosure, from
the attached dependent claims as well as from the drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
A more complete understanding of the present invention and certain
advantages thereof may be acquired by referring to the following
description in consideration of the accompanying drawings, in which
like reference numbers indicate like features, and wherein:
FIG. 1 shows a wireless communication system in which D2D can be
implemented;
FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the method for controlling state
transition of a UE in proximity wireless communication according to
an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 3 a flowchart of the method for controlling state transition
of a UE in proximity wireless communication according to another
embodiment of the present invention; and
FIG. 4 is a simplified block diagram of various apparatuses which
are suitable for use in practicing exemplary embodiments of the
present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS
The basic idea of the present invention is to allow all the active
devices involved in a network controlled D2D communication to get
back to idle state of the serving network if there is some
reliable, robust and efficient enough means in place: (i) for the
devices to return to connected state of the serving network and
(ii) for the serving network to reach the devices, both in a quick
and efficient manner whenever e.g. UE reporting or network control
is necessary. The means here may includes, e.g.: an existing
association to a trusted local access point serving as a ProSe
(Proximity Service) discovery agent or local U-plane connectivity
or offloading agent for the serving cell and network (the agent can
be fixed or stationary, or even mounted and moving together with
the devices on bus, train, etc.); an association to another
inter-operating network, also referred to as an `agent` of the
serving network; and some additional or enhanced network
configuration means to configure and manage the proposed RRC state
transition of the UEs for D2D. This kind of special idle state may
be referred to as a `virtual associated` state. Else, at least one
of the devices is kept in RRC CONNECTED state. For serving network
to reach the devices, it can be done through its associated
agent(s) in a light and cost saving way, which will be different
from the legacy way as flood-based paging approach. This is thanks
to the associated agent(s) context maintained in the network
side.
The serving cell (or network) determines whether to push some or
all of the devices involved in the network controlled D2D of
interest into the `virtual associated` state based on whether such
the aforementioned means is in place, as the network may learn such
that in advance. The network may also delegate such control to one
of the UEs to trigger RRC state transmission in case this UE acts
as a cluster header among D2D UE clusters. This decision making may
of course consider other factors such as capabilities, states or
statuses and conditions of the serving network and individual user
devices. The network may then issue e.g. a control message to
configure the relevant UEs, either individually or commonly as
group-wise, with necessary control information (e.g., to
communicate at least part of the UE context of the `virtual
associated` state as proposed below) and put the UEs to the
`virtual associated` state. Note that the existing RRC Connection
Reconfiguration or Release procedure may be reused and extended for
implementing this state transition.
The network learns about the association based on reporting from
the individual UEs about their association to some preconfigured or
selected agents, or other way around, reporting from the agents
about the UE associated to it. After D2D discovery and setup, when
state transition is needed, UEs are in RRC Connected state to
support the reporting and triggering of transition. Note that, the
agent in this invention may have both implementation and standard
possibilities. For some examples, thinking of Wi-Fi or existing
cellular RATs (Radio Access Technologies) then the agent can be of
existing access node(s) of the same or different RANs which
inter-operate with the serving one and the association between UE
and agent may therefore be based upon the existing procedures. For
some other examples, thinking of enhanced local access point for
future mobile broadband network or device acting as agent, agent
association and assistance on the RRC state transmission may be
optimized and standardized.
UE context of the `virtual associated` state may include for
example: IDs of associated agent(s), Radio Network Temporary
Identifiers (RNTIs) of UE valid to access the agent(s) (including
other inter-operating network) or directly to the serving cell, how
often or upon which event UE needs to report to the serving network
and the access may be initiated via the agent, another network or
directly to the serving network, how the UE needs to monitor
network-initiated control signaling and how to response to that,
etc. These rules are configured and controlled by the network.
UE context of the `virtual associated` state may be updated and
synchronized between the individual UE and the network with or
without assistance of the associated agent. The UE may update the
association agent context by itself upon detecting a new suitable
agent and successfully associating to that (agent reselection, as
configured and controlled by the network via preconfigured
reselection criteria, rules or policies as well as constraints).
Then either the new agent may take charge in reporting and updating
the network of the new agent context for the UE or the UE may
report that to the network by itself via the new agent. In the case
that the UE detects that the current agent association is no longer
valid and no new suitable agent is found, the UE need to get back
to RRC CONNECTED via regular IDLE UE procedure, indicating or
reporting that cause to the network. The network may then update
the UE state and keep it in RRC CONNECTED.
The release of the `virtual associated` state in the network side
may be triggered by the report from the agents that the UE's
association to it has changed. In this case, the network may need
to use the normal network initiated procedure to regain the control
of the UE on the cell level. Or if network learns about the
association based on reporting from the individual UEs, UE may
report the change of association status of the agents with the
normal idle mode UE initiated procedure with the information of the
`virtual associated` state UE context. In this case, the release of
the `virtual associated` state may result in the state transition
to RRC CONNECTED state for the UE in the network side.
In some certain aspects, this invention proposes an adaptive use of
mechanisms which are applied in long DRX state in RRC CONNECTED and
RLF recovery via RRC IDLE and now extended and enhanced with
possibility of using configured out-of-band agent(s). The
introduced `virtual associated` state can be considered as some
state in between the current RRC CONNECTED and RRC IDLE states.
That the network may put the devices (stationary ones, immobile in
relation to an access-point agent which can be fixed or mounted on
a moving vehicle) into RRC IDLE or long DRX in RRC CONNECTED but
with certain CONNECTED context such as UE context of the `virtual
associated` state (to allow the eNB to control the devices on the
serving cell level using the context) or otherwise the eNB may need
to be informed of IDLE UE context by the means introduced above (to
be able to initiate control of the devices right away without MME
involved) can be considered as boundary or fall-back operations of
the proposed adaptive method. The main operation is to put the
devices into the `virtual associated` state with the agent
contexts, as described above. FIG. 2 provides an illustration of
some aspects of the proposed method.
Preferably, the various embodiments of the present invention may be
implemented for example in such an environment as shown in FIG.
1.
It should be noted that, in some implementations, the base station
110 as shown in FIG. 1, which can be implemented as an evolved Node
B (eNB) type base station, consistent with standards, including the
Long Term Evolution (LTE) standards. The user equipments 114A-C may
be mobile and/or stationary. Moreover, the user equipments 114A-C
may be referred to as, for example, devices, mobile stations,
mobile units, subscriber stations, wireless terminals, terminals,
or the like. The user equipments may be implemented as, for
example, a wireless handheld device, a wireless plug-in accessory,
or the like. For example, the user equipment may take the form of a
wireless phone, a computer with a wireless connection to a network,
or the like. In some cases, the user equipment may include one or
more of the following: at least one processor, at least one
computer-readable storage medium (e.g., memory, storage, and the
like), a radio access mechanism, and a user interface.
It should be also noted that, in some implementations, the wireless
communication system 100 can be configured to comply substantially
with a standard system specification, such as 3GPP UTRAN or EUTRAN
or other wireless standards, such as WiBro, WiFi, Bluetooth, IEEE
802.16, or it may be a proprietary system. For example, the
wireless communication system 100 may include two kinds of
communication paths for communications between two user equipments.
One is an infrastructure communication path which is routed over a
network infrastructure such as communication links 122A-C, between
the user equipment 114B and the user equipment 114C. The links 122A
and 122B each represents radio access links between the user
equipments and access nodes of the radio access network, such as an
eNB. The link 122C represents a link between the radio access
network and the core network. For example, the links 122A-C may be
configured as cellular communication links in accordance with LTE
and/or LTE-Advanced. The other kinds of communication paths for
communications between two user equipments can be a D2D
communication path which is routed directly between two user
equipments without using any network infrastructure, such as a
communication link 124 between the user equipment 114A and 114B.
For example, links 124 may be configured as D2D links in accordance
with WiFi or Bluetooth. D2D communication links may be incorporated
in public land mobile systems, such as the 3rd Generation
Partnership Project (3GPP) as well as subsequent generations of
wireless systems to provide cellular controlled D2D communications.
The cellular system, such as the eNB 110 or MME (Mobility
Management Entity) and SGW (serving gateway), may be used to aid in
the establishment and ongoing control of the D2D links 124 (e.g.,
radio resources by the D2D links, switch control, etc).
An exemplary embodiment of the present invention will be
hereinafter described with reference to the drawings.
Now with reference to FIG. 2, the method for controlling state
transition of a user equipment UE in proximity wireless
communication will be described hereinafter in combination with the
environment shown in FIG. 1. In the present embodiment, the
proximity wireless communication is for example the
device-to-device discovery and communication procedure, and said
method can be implemented for example in a base station, such as
eNB 110 as shown in FIG. 1.
As shown in FIG. 2, first of all, said UE is kept in the connected
state in step 200, in case that there is not an agent associated
with said UE or said UE is not equipped with capability about the
virtual associated state. Herein, said UE may be for example UE
114A as shown in FIG. 1. Furthermore, the states of said UE comply
with for example the Radio Resource Control RRC states.
As mentioned above, the agent in this invention may have both
implementation and standard possibilities. For some examples,
thinking of Wi-Fi or existing cellular RATs then the agent can be
of existing access node(s) of the same or different RANs which
inter-operate with the serving one and the association between UE
and agent may therefore be based upon the existing procedures. For
some other examples, thinking of enhanced local access point for
future mobile broadband network or device acting as agent, agent
association and assistance on the RRC state transmission may be
optimized and standardized.
Next, in step 201, an associated agent's context of a connected UE
and said UE's capability are learned about. For example, either UE
114A reports to eNodeB 110 about its association with said agent,
or the associated agent reports to the base station about UE 114A
being associated with it.
Herein, the association between said UE and said agent is a
physical association, which means either discovering the agent by
physical signal or establishing the physical connection with the
agent. Note that, the term "physical" is only intended to
distinguish from association to agents on application layer, but
not limit the invention. In particular, the term "physical signal"
means that the UE detect the agent based on the signal transmitted
by the agent; and the term "physical connection" means that the UE
set up a direct connection with an agent (i.e. the connection
between the UE and the agent is not via another network
element).
Next, in step 202, a decision is made about whether to put the
connected UE into virtual associated state. If yes, for example UE
114A has successfully associated to an agent, then the method
proceeds to step 203; otherwise the method returns to step 200.
Note that in said virtual association state, said UE gets back to
idle state while keeping associated with said agent.
Next, in step 203, a message with indication of putting said UE
into said virtual associated state as well as the UE's context is
sent to the UE. In the present embodiment, said message is for
example either a RRC connection release message or a RRC connection
reconfiguration message, in which said indication is added, for
example with the extended Information Element(s) of these messages.
Said indication may be either explicitly included or implicitly
with the extra UE virtual associated state context information.
Optionally, said message can further comprise for example context
of said UE related to the virtual associated state.
Finally, in step 204, said associated agent's context of the said
UE is maintained. In the present embodiment, said maintaining can
comprise: when the UE detected a new agent and is successfully
associated with it, either the UE updating and reporting to the
base station, either directly or via an agent (either its older
agent of its new agent), its new association agent context; or the
UE updating its new association agent context locally and then the
new agent reporting to the base station the new agent context for
the UE.
It should be note that, if the base station has received a report
from the agent indicating that the UE's association to it is no
longer valid and does not receive, for a certain period, any report
from other agents indicating that the UE associates to it, then the
release of the virtual associated state is initiated by the base
station. OR, if the network learns about the association based on
reporting from the UE directly, the UE reports release of
association status of any agent with the normal idle mode UE
initiated procedure and triggers the release of the virtual
associated state in the base station.
FIG. 3 illustrates another embodiment of the method for controlling
state transition of a user equipment UE in proximity wireless
communication, which can be implemented for example by a UE.
In step 301, the UE reports to a base station to which it is
connected about an associated agent's context. For example, UE 114A
reports to eNodeB 110 about its association with said agent.
Next, in step 302, the UE receives from said base station a message
with indication of putting said UE into virtual associated state as
well as the UE's context. In the present embodiment, said message
is for example either a RRC connection release message or a RRC
connection reconfiguration message, in which said indication is
added, for example with the extended Information Element(s) of
these messages. Said indication may be either explicitly included
or implicitly with the extra UE virtual associated state context
information. Optionally, said message can further comprise for
example context of said UE related to the virtual associated
state.
Finally, in step 303, the UE switches to said virtual associated
state while keeping associated with the said agent.
The various blocks shown in FIGS. 2-3 may be viewed as method
steps, and/or as operations that result from operation of computer
program code, and/or as a plurality of coupled logic circuit
elements constructed to carry out the associated function(s). The
schematic flow chart diagrams described above are generally set
forth as logical flow chart diagrams. As such, the depicted order
and labeled steps are indicative of specific embodiments of the
presented methods. Other steps and methods may be conceived that
are equivalent in function, logic, or effect to one or more steps,
or portions thereof, of the illustrated methods. Additionally, the
order in which a particular method occurs may or may not strictly
adhere to the order of the corresponding steps shown. The solution
provided by the present invention can help the network to reach the
devices through its associated agent(s) in a light and cost saving
way, based on the associated agent(s) context maintained in the
network side, which will be different from the legacy way as
flood-based paging approach.
FIG. 4 is a simplified block diagram of various apparatuses which
are suitable for use in practicing exemplary embodiments of the
present invention. In FIG. 4, a UE 440 (such as mobile phone,
wireless terminal, portable device, PDA, multimedia tablet, and
etc.) may be adapted for communicating with one or more network
nodes such as a first network node 410, a second network node 420
and a third network node 430. The first network node 410 (such as a
BS/eNB etc.), the second network node 420 (such as a BS/eNB etc.)
and the third network node 430 (such as a BS/eNB etc.) may be
adapted for communicating with each other directly or through a
network entity such as a Mobility Management Entity (MME) or other
intermediate entity in a core network (not shown in FIG. 4). In an
exemplary embodiment, the UE 440 may comprise a data processor (DP)
440A, a memory (MEM) 440B that stores a program (PROG) 440C, and a
suitable transceiver 440D for communicating with an apparatus such
as another UE, a network node, a server and so on. The first
network node 410 may comprise a data processor (DP) 410A, a memory
(MEM) 410B that stores a program (PROG) 410C, and a suitable
transceiver 410D for communicating with an apparatus such as the
second network node 420, the third network node 430, a UE 440 or a
network entity (not shown in FIG. 4). Similarly, the third network
node 430 may comprise a data processor (DP) 430A, a memory (MEM)
430B that stores a program (PROG) 430C, and a suitable transceiver
430D for communicating with an apparatus such as the first network
node 410, the second network node 420, the UE 440 or a network
entity (not shown in FIG. 4). It is noted that the second network
node 420 may have components or means similar to the first and the
third network nodes although not shown in FIG. 4. For example, at
least one of the transceivers 410D, 430D, 440D may be an integrated
component for transmitting and/or receiving signals and messages.
Alternatively, at least one of the transceivers 410D, 430D, 440D
may comprise separate components to support transmitting and
receiving signals/messages, respectively. The respective DPs 410A,
430A and 440A may be used for processing these signals and
messages.
Alternatively or additionally, the UE 440, the first network node
410 and the third network node 430 may comprise various means
and/or components for implementing functions of the foregoing steps
and methods in FIGS. 1-2. For example, the UE 440 may comprise:
reporting means for reporting an associated agent's context to a
base station to which said UE is connected; receiving means for
receiving from said base station a message with indication of
putting said UE into virtual associated state as well as the UE's
context; and switching means for switching to said virtual
associated state while keeping associated with the said agent. In
an exemplary embodiment, the first network node 410 may comprise:
learning means for learning about an associated agent's context of
a connected UE and said UE's capability; deciding means for
deciding to put the connected UE into virtual associated state;
sending means for sending to said UE a message with indication of
putting said UE into said virtual associated state as well as the
UE's context; and maintaining means for maintaining said associated
agent's context of the UE.
At least one of the PROGs 410C, 430C, 440C is assumed to comprise
program instructions that, when executed by the associated DP,
enable an apparatus to operate in accordance with the exemplary
embodiments, as discussed above. That is, the exemplary embodiments
of the present invention may be implemented at least in part by
computer software executable by the DP 410A of the first network
node 410, by the DP 430A of the third network node 430 and by the
DP 440A of the UE 440, or by hardware, or by a combination of
software and hardware.
The MEMs 410B, 430B and 440B may be of any type suitable to the
local technical environment and may be implemented using any
suitable data storage technology, such as semiconductor based
memory devices, flash memory, magnetic memory devices and systems,
optical memory devices and systems, fixed memory and removable
memory. The DPs 410A, 430A and 440A may be of any type suitable to
the local technical environment, and may comprise one or more of
general purpose computers, special purpose computers,
microprocessors, digital signal processors (DSPs) and processors
based on multi-core processor architectures, as non-limiting
examples.
In general, the various exemplary embodiments may be implemented in
hardware or special purpose circuits, software, logic or any
combination thereof. For example, some aspects may be implemented
in hardware, while other aspects may be implemented in firmware or
software which may be executed by a controller, microprocessor or
other computing device, although the invention is not limited
thereto. While various aspects of the exemplary embodiments of this
invention may be illustrated and described as block diagrams, flow
charts, or using some other pictorial representation, it is well
understood that these blocks, apparatus, systems, techniques or
methods described herein may be implemented in, as non-limiting
examples, hardware, software, firmware, special purpose circuits or
logic, general purpose hardware or controller or other computing
devices, or some combination thereof.
It will be appreciated that at least some aspects of the exemplary
embodiments of the inventions may be embodied in
computer-executable instructions, such as in one or more program
modules, executed by one or more computers or other devices.
Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects,
components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or
implement particular abstract data types when executed by a
processor in a computer or other device. The computer executable
instructions may be stored on a computer readable medium such as a
hard disk, optical disk, removable storage media, solid state
memory, random access memory (RAM), and etc. As will be realized by
one of skill in the art, the functionality of the program modules
may be combined or distributed as desired in various embodiments.
In addition, the functionality may be embodied in whole or in part
in firmware or hardware equivalents such as integrated circuits,
field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), and the like.
Although specific embodiments of the invention have been disclosed,
those having ordinary skill in the art will understand that changes
can be made to the specific embodiments without departing from the
spirit and scope of the invention. The scope of the invention is
not to be restricted therefore to the specific embodiments, and it
is intended that the appended claims cover any and all such
applications, modifications, and embodiments within the scope of
the present invention.
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